Abstract
As
company intranets continue to grow it is increasingly important that network
administrators are aware of and have a handle on the different types of traffic
that is traversing their networks. Network Bandwidth monitoring and analysis is
essential in order to more effectively troubleshoot and resolve issues when
they occur, so as to not bring network services to a stand still for extended
periods of time. Also to prevent intruders and unauthorized access to the system.
Numerous tools are available to help administrators with the monitoring and
analysis of network traffic. This research project discusses Network Bandwidth
Monitoring system as it gives special reference to academic institution
(Federal Polytechnic Oko). It gives an overview of the three most widely used
network monitoring tools available (SNMP, RMON, and Cisco Netflow), and provides
information about how a new developed software application can improve
monitoring that use a combination of passive and active monitoring. And to give
access to the authorized users hence giving reports on who uses the system and
when.
CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1. BACKGROUND OF STUDY
Attacks on
computer by outside intruder are more publicized but the ones perpetrated by
insiders are very common and often more damaging. Insiders represent the
greatest threat to computer security because they understand their
organization’s business and how their computer systems work. They have both the
confidentiality and access to perform these attacks. An inside attack will have
a higher probability of successfully breaking into the system and extracting
critical information. The insiders also represent the greatest challenge to
securing the company network because they have authorized level of access to
the file system.
The usage of the internet is being abused due
to its misuse in a variety of ways, leading to the wastage of bandwidth,
introduction of viruses in the system, spyware, etc. Many organizations spend
large amount of money to the ISP provider but the overall estimated cost of the
bandwidth used for actual productive purpose proves to be too less than what is
being paid (Hubboard, 1996). In such situations, it becomes mandatory for a
network administrator to manage the resources, which will lead to the optimized
use of the resources. The bandwidth monitoring system is employed in order to
find the usage of the available and bottleneck bandwidth and to control it from
exceeding beyond the maximum value (Hubboard, 1996). The firewall operation
blocks the usage of unauthorized websites using their IP address, thereby
minimizing the excess use of the allocated bandwidth. Although the present system
monitors the excess usage of bandwidth and ceases the access to unauthorized
websites, one can surely download his personal documents saved on the Google
Drive. This usage goes unnoticed most of the times, which proves the
inefficiency of the system. For example, an employee access social networking
sites like Face book, Twitter, etc. during work hours, which abuses the
efficient usage of the bandwidth. If the network administrator is aware of this
loss, he/she can directly prohibit the person from using the bandwidth and
thereby actions can be taken against the employee.
Monitoring system
enables the network administrator to know the content, which is being used or
being downloaded at the user’s end, while he is monitoring the bandwidth usage.
This assigns the administrator, the power to decide the status of the content
as valid or invalid and if it is invalid content, then block the user whose
bandwidth usage exceeds the maximum value. If the content is a valid content,
the administrator will thus allow the user to go o with his current task, but
he will be assigned a reduced bandwidth. Thus, our system deals with
monitoring, controlling and reducing the assigned bandwidth. It should be noted
that the technique of monitoring is applied to all the nodes, but the technique
of controlling and reduction are applied to the node which exceeds in its
bandwidth usage.
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
The problem of the existing includes the following
i.
Ineffective
monitoring and management of network activities/uses.
ii.
Misuse/unnecessary
utilization of data/bandwidth.
iii.
Insecurity/unauthorized
access to the network.
iv.
Un-productivity
as a result of misuse/wastage of bandwidth.
v.
Slow network
traffic as a result of irrelevant activities going-on on the network.
1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF STUDY
The objective of this work is to develop a system that
should be able to;
i. Monitor the daily activities of every user in a
network in real time.
ii. Ristrict unnecessary utilization of
data/bandwidth.
iii. Address the problem of insecurity in the network.
iv. Make productive use of the network bandwidth.
vi.
Increase the seed
of network traffic by blocking any irrelevant activities by the users
1.4
SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
This work was embarked upon for several reasons as
discussed below:
i.
It increases
employee’s loyalty by ensuring that he/she is meeting up with their
expectations.
ii.
The portion of
bandwidth which may have being wasted will be put into production.
iii.
Proper management of users at their different
nodes will be assured.
iv.
It will guarantee
the integrity of system by staying current on work status so as to know how
well the organization is going.
1.5. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
Although a Network bandwidth Monitoring System
involves many things and activities that can be run within it, yet due to lack
of time and space, we were not able to use this software in other operating
systems apart from windows operating system (that is from windows XP to windows
operating system of higher versions) This work also will aid in monitoring the
activities of the system with the bandwidth, giving information and granting
access to only authorized users. Furthermore this work did also not involve
internet connectivity as well as detection of virus in a network.
1.6 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
During the course of this study, many things militated
against its completion, some of which are;
Lack of finance
Refusal of the Federal Polytechnic, Oko, to give
detailed answers and in some cases no answer at all to some questions.
This project is limited to all the data associated
with the information gotten from the Federal Polytechnic Oko, and due to time
factor, not all the commissions were reached for sources of data and
information.
1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS
NAMS (Network bandwidth Monitoring System): This is the system that is used monitor the daily
activity of every user on a network
Corporate fraud: This
is the fraud committed by insiders in a large, publicly traded (or private)
corporation, and/or by senior executives.
Real time: Occurring
immediately, this is used for such task as navigation, in which the computer
must react to a steady flow of new information without interruption.
LAN (local area network): This is computer network that spans a relatively small
area. Most LANs are confined to a single building or group of buildings.
Suid: A file
attributes which allows a program to run as a specific user no matter who
executes it.
Corporate decision making: This is connected with a corporation, this involves
the image of a company or organization where all its members involve taking
critical decision making (finance/planning/strategy)